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Thursday, 16 February 2017

Canon 6D Timelapse overnight with a Powerbank and no shutter count!

Have you seen the beautiful Time-Lapse videos, some on 4K that are all around the internet? Some have increased dynamic range which gives a spectacular effect and changes the way we see the world (in fast movement). Seeing the time passing by so quickly fitting 2 or more hours in a one minute clip is something that drew my attention, but I was always scared of the large shutter count it would need before the video length was enough to watch.

You see, in a 30 fps 1-second clip you will need...30 frames, so for 1 minute you will need 1.800 (60*30=1800) photos. If you want an audio stream to combine with your video (most people do) the frame count is further increased e.g. for a 5-minute music piece you will need approximately 9.000 photos. That's a lot of shutter actuations and this was what kept me from using my Canon 6D for timelapse photography. Replacing the shutter once this reaches 100.000 actuations costs about 250 euros in Greece and I have no intention of reaching that limit so soon.

I already had Magic Lantern installed on my camera and I came across an option labeled "Silent Pictures" with the option "FullRes" saving in DNG format and I thought about giving it a try. What this option actually does is taking pictures while the shutter is up (on LiveView mode) without closing the shutter on every frame. Impressive eh? Well there are limitations (and features you can combine). First of all you can take photos as long as 15 seconds and as short as 1/15, so you need a tripod and a Neutral Density filter if you shoot during the day.

You can also combine Silent Pictures with AutoExposure and Timelapse to set the exposure right and the number of frames you want to shoot. I will not go into depth here, you can also combine this with other Magic Lantern features such as Dual-ISO etc.

But if you want to take pictures overnight or for a very long time you will soon run out of juice. So, what can you do? Actually there's currently no one-stop solution. You must first get a Dummy battery charger pack (For Canon 6D see here). Then you must obtain this cable from MyVolts Amazon store. People in MyVolts are doing a fantastic and beyond any expectation job. They are always willing to help you find the proper solution for your needs and their products are innovative and of very good quality.

I was really impressed when I asked a simple compatibility question for my camera and the 5V USB to 7.5V 0.84A cable and not only they showed me the right cable for my need, but they also went into further explaining what type of power bank would be suitable for providing enough current to operate my camera. They also bought similar power-banks for further testing to make sure they can provide the current needed. Now I know I need a 2.4A, 10.000 MAh power-bank in order for my Canon 6D to operate in time-lapse mode through the night (and further from what I have estimated).

After taking the DNG photos, you can import them in Lightroom or ACR and further improve the dynamic range and color for the whole stack in order to construct the full frames. You carry on with the necessary adjustments and export the entire sequence frame by frame in a subfolder. Your work is almost done if you know how to turn this large number of frames into a continuous video sequence. Some are using Premiere as it offers greater control over quality, framing and you can also add a music track to complete your timelapse while you are at it. Others are using programs like PanoLapse which offers easier control over the end result, but without audio and very few quality presets. I prefer Premiere when I am not in a rush, but I also have Panolapse when I want to check out the end result faster.

I will have more details on how my rig is now built and a sample of how it looks in a few more days, I just got my own 2.4 A powerbank and I must run a few tests!

Here is the timelapse sequence on youtube. This is my first timelapse video with this rig using Magic Lantern's Dual-ISO, Timalapse and FullRes SilentPictures, nothing fancy...